Holy Motors

Join Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) on his rollicking, soulful journey by limousine through the streets of Paris as he transforms into multiple characters for a series of mysterious “appointments.” He is, in turn, captain of industry, assassin, beggar, monster, family man… He seems to be playing roles, plunging headlong into each part – but where are the cameras? Monsieur Oscar is alone, accompanied only by Céline (Edith Scob), the slender blonde woman behind the wheel of the vast engine that transports him through and around Paris. He’s like a conscientious assassin moving from hit to hit. In pursuit of the beautiful gesture, the mysterious driving force, the women and the ghosts of past lives. But where is his true home, his family, his rest? Melding monster movie, film noir, romantic drama, musical, crime thriller, anime, Léos Carax’s mirthful, mind-bending masterwork is a ravishing fever dream of becoming, unraveling and starting all over again. Holy Motors is utterly unique — a deliriously entertaining and defiantly strange journey of the soul that careens through the streets of Paris exuding comedy, mystery, romance, intrigue and melodrama. Holy Motors is a love letter to both the City of Lights and the flickering lights of movie magic through the years, as embodied by one of the most mischievously original screen protagonists in memory. (France, 2012, 115 min., color, 35mm – Writer/Director: Léos Carax – Cast: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes)

“Exhilarating! A gift for movie… full of laughter, horror, rapture and eddies and swells of despair… feels unlike anything else: it’s cinema reloaded.

– Manohla Dargis, New York Times

“FIVE STARS! Weird and wonderful, rich and strange – barking mad, in fact. It is wayward, kaleidoscopic, black comic and bizarre; there is in it a batsqueak of genius, dishevelment and derangement; it is captivating and compelling.”

– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian”

“Leos Carax’s unholy odyssey into the dreamy marvels of cinema itself is an exhilarating hybrid of comedy, melodrama, science fiction, crime thriller, and musical romance. Wholly mysterious and impossibly lovely, this mad hatter’s monsterpiece may be the best film of the year.”

– Aaron Hillis, The Village Voice

“It’s mad crazy beautiful.” – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

“An exhilarating tour de force… The most astonishing film at Cannes.”

– John Powers, Vogue

“A combustible roman candle of a film. Exhilarating, opaque, heartbreaking and completely bonkers… a deliciously preposterous piece of filmmaking that appraises life and death and everything in between, reflect in a funhouse mirror.”

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